A childhood friend of Tommy Sheridan claimed today that he went with him to an "unusual" club in Manchester where pornographic material was being shown on television screens.

The former Scottish Socialist party MSP is accused of lying, during a libel action against the News of the World four years ago, about visits to a Manchester swingers' club called Cupids.

Gary Clark, a former professional footballer and friend of Sheridan from primary school, told the high court in Glasgow that he and Sheridan and three others drove for a "fairly long time" and that he knew he was in Manchester because he remembered "seeing the signs.

Clark said Sheridan had driven the car and that all five of them had gone upstairs into a club. "It was a wee bit more unusual than any club I had been in before. There was pornography on the TVs round about the club." Asked what made it so unusual, he said: "It wasn't Tom and Jerry being shown on the TVs."

Sheridan and his wife, Gail, both 46, deny lying under oath during the politician's successful defamation action against the News of the World in 2006. The paper claimed he was an adulterer who visited swingers' clubs but he denied this and was awarded £200,000 in damages.

Last week another witness, Katrine Trolle, told the jury of 13 women and two men, that Sheridan had had group sex with her and others at Cupids, the swingers' sex club in Manchester. Sheridan called her a "conscious liar" and accused her of making up stories.

Clark told the court the group of five who went to Manchester included himself, Sheridan, Katrine Trolle, Anvar Khan, a journalist, and Sheridan's brother-in-law, Andy McFarlane. Shown photographs of rooms at Cupids, including one labelled "dungeon", Clark said he could not say for sure they were the same rooms.

The court was told that Clark's wife had left him 13 days before the alleged visit to the club, in September 2002, and that he had been abusing alcohol and anti-depressants.

Clark said he had not given evidence in the defamation action because he had not wanted the "shame". He said: "I was embarrassed and I was hoping it wasn't going to come to this." He had also refused large sums from the NoW to speak up.

Sheridan, who is defending himself after dismissing his counsel, suggested that alcohol meant Clark's memory from that time could not be relied upon. Clark replied yes, but added: "I also recall certain things too."

Sheridan said: "Things may have been suggested to you that may have filled the gaps in your memory but you're not 100% sure?"

Asked again by advocate depute, Alex Prentice QC, prosecuting, if he could remember the club, he said: "Yes, even despite alcohol and medication."

Sheridan then went on to accuse the former MSP Carolyn Leckie of being part of a cynical and duplicitous plan to bring him down. She said: "You don't like anybody who has got the cheek to stand up to you."

Asked if she had been aware that her partner, Alan McCombes, co-founder with Sheridan of the Scottish Socialist party, had helped script a secretly recorded video of Sheridan allegedly confessing to attending the swingers' clubs, she said: "Don't talk rubbish, Tommy. What planet are you on?"

Sheridan then suggested Leckie had been party to a meeting where "dishing out the dosh" paid by the News of the World for the secret video was discussed. Leckie said: "That's absolute nonsense and scurrilous. You are Walter Mitty."

She later added: "You did admit going to swingers' clubs. You think anybody who doesn't agree to lie for you is "agin" you. Infamy, infamy, everybody's got it in for me."